*FSR traveled to Manaus, Brazil to attend and cover the 8th Amazonas Film Festival. See all our coverage here.* I’m sitting in a small van and staring at a Brazilian police officer standing a few feet away with a submachine gun in his hands. He’s not alone. The van starts up and soon our motorcade is weaving its way through the city streets of Manaus, from the hotel and commercial area through the graffiti filled downtown, heading towards the Amazonas Opera House. Police officers on motorbikes escort the caravan along, rushing past at tremendous speed to block off the intersections ahead before repeating the process once all the cars have passed. The experience was more than a little surreal, and I can only wonder what the throngs of pedestrians watching the caravan of tinted windows speed by were thinking. As my movie-addled mind is prone to do I immediately started thinking of similar scenes from films with the most notable one being Clear and Present Danger. Sure that was Columbia and not Brazil, but that didn’t stop me from scanning the rooftops for rebels aiming rocket launchers down upon us. As frenetic as the ride was, especially when combined with the already aggressive driving style of every single person in the city, it served as a tonal balance to the events of earlier in the day. Nothing like a lazy ride on the Amazon River to clear your mind and soul of unnecessary daily debris.

*FSR traveled to Manaus, Brazil to attend and cover the 8th Amazonas Film Festival. See all our coverage here.* I am in Brazil. Those four words are easy to type and even easier to read, but the journey to make them a reality has been anything but. From Visa problems at the Brazilian consulate, to mechanical issues that delayed my trip by a full day, to a mix-up in Miami that left me forced to pay a few hundred bucks in change-flight fees, to a drunken blowhard in my seating row loudly insulting those around him until I commented and he promptly fell asleep. (To be fair, he may have actually passed out before I commented…) It was not a great experience. But then my plane began to descend over Brazil, and the lush, vibrant rain forest spread out beneath me like a giant and deliriously green shag carpet dissected by the mysterious waters of the Rio Negros. The river resembles a dark lightning strike cutting a swath through the jungle, its main body constantly breaking off into jagged streams and tributaries until it finally meets up with the Amazon. It’s an awesome and belittling thing to see from above as it appears endless in every visible direction… and then you hit Manaus, a city of two million people sitting squarely in the middle of the jungle.

*FSR traveled to Manaus, Brazil to attend and cover the 8th Amazonas Film Festival. See all our coverage here.* The most talked about elements of any film festival are usually the films that play there, but there are other aspects that can make or break a fest as well. The atmosphere, the attitudes of both organizers and attendees, the local cuisine, the quality of the theaters… And of course, location. Sundance has the snow-covered beauty of small town Utah. Cannes has the sun-dappled beaches of Southern France. SXSW and Fantastic Fest have the film lover’s mecca of Austin, Texas. And the Amazonas has a Brazilian city on the Amazon River surrounded by rainforest. A city which this year, from November 3rd through the 9th, will be invaded by FSR (in the form of yours truly).

James Cameron puts more work into his films than perhaps anyone else working in Hollywood right now. It’s fun to juxtapose what he does with the way another living legend like Woody Allen works. Woody makes a movie every year. He writes up a script, gets some actors, and gets the thing shot. James Cameron has to invent new technologies in order to make a new movie, he has to take quests all around the globe. He doesn’t seem content to just make a new movie anymore, he has to make movies that do things nobody else has ever done. We already know that he plans on showing off the oceans of Pandora for his sequel to Avatar. And we’ve heard about how he wants to take dive teams to the deepest parts of the ocean in preparation for creating those scenes. Well now it appears that actors in the film are going to have to trek out to the jungle as well. While attending an international forum about sustainability in Brazil, Cameron had this to say, “Avatar is a film about the rain forest and its indigenous people. Before I start to shoot the two films I want to bring my actors here, so I can better tell this story.” This expedition could end up going one of two ways, either the Avatar sequels are going to end up being the most authentic space-jungle movies ever, or Cameron is going to disappear into the bush with his crew never [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Every week, Landon Palmer and Cole Abaius log on to their favorite chat client of 1996 as OutofFoucault23 and RockRockRockRocknRollHS in order to discuss some topical topic of interest. This week, the pair digs deeper into a question plaguing all of mankind: can a studio interfering with the artistic process actually create positive results? What happens when a director’s cut is worse than the initial release? They put their heads together to come up with just about every single example (take “single” literally) of a movie saved by studio intervention.

Every day, come rain or shine or internet tubes breaking, Film School Rejects showcases a trailer from the past. Saaaaaaaam…….Saaaaaaaam……. It’s interesting to see how little Robert De Niro is featured in this trailer, but Jonathan Pryce is the star after all. Or, rather, Terry Gilliam’s visuals are the true star alongside a big dose of face-stretching nihilism. After all, it’s only a state of mind. Think you know what it is? Check the trailer out for yourself:

Every day, come rain or shine or internet tubes breaking, Film School Rejects showcases a trailer from the past. This trailer features extreme plastic surgery, dream girls walking through real life, and terrorist bombings. It also features an absolutely insane Robert De Nio trying to fix your tubes. From the mind of one of the Pythons, it’s only a state of mind. Think you know what it is? Check out the trailer after the jump.

Just as film noir isn’t one single definable thing, noir itself contains many offshoots and categories. And every Noirvember, it’s important to not only examine good ol’ film noir, but its corresponding variants as well. One aspect of noir that complicates its designation as a genre or a style is the persistence of neo-noir, a cinematic form that arose in direct reaction to noir. In the US, canonical neo-noirs include films like Roman Polanski’s Chinatown or Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye. These were films made by filmmakers who knew cinema’s history, who have seen and studied noir’s origins and staples. These were filmmakers who worshiped film history and used classic cinema as a prototype for their own creation, embedding references to the old while departing from it in creating the new.

You’re sitting in your living room when the call comes. It’s a crackle, then a bright tone, then a recorded voice asking if you’ll accept the charges. You agree, and instantly the other end explodes with an angry rasp yelling at you about money and your loved one’s life. If you don’t follow through with the amount they want, they’ll cut off another body part. This is the startling opening to Sequestro, a documentary getting its hands dirty in the big business of disappearances in Brazil. Following the special police force assigned to the epidemic and delivering the heart-shaking details of the families dealing with a father, a mother, a brother, a sister who is in the hands of kidnappers, the film is an insightful look at something nightmarish that exists in everyday life in South America.

A few months ago, the trailer for The Disappearance of Alice Creed came online and surprised with its stark look at the taking of one young woman. Leave it to a documentary to blow all of that out of the water. Sequestro focuses its cameras on a police force meant to fight kidnapping and retrieve victims in Sao Paulo, Brazil. They shot for four years (or for 386 kidnappings (or for over 1,500 if you count all of Brazil)). Imagine if you were the one who got the phone call.

If there’s one thing I love more than seeing a great movie for the first time, it’s sharing a movie that I find great with someone whom has never seen it before. It might be part of something essential in human nature: a desire to share an experience that one finds profound with those whose opinion you trust and value. Whether it be something intensely moving, shockingly original, incredibly interesting, intellectually challenging, or unprecedentedly hilarious, introducing a valuable cinematic experience to a friend can induce the most rewarding of feelings for the cinephile.

By making it all the way to the Final Four, these films have proven their supremacy, but only one can survive through to the Championship for a chance at eternal glory (that comes around every four years). Spirited Away is already coming into the round as the giant slayer by taking down Return of the King, but City of God took down a favorite of its own in Pan’s Labyrinth. Two underdogs that have proven victorious. Now, one of them has to go home before the big dance. Who will it be?

So far, the representative from Spain has bested the films it has gone up against with relative ease – seeing some of the largest margins of defeat in the entire tournament. In this round, Pan’s Labyrinth goes up against a bit tougher competition in the highly acclaimed City of God from Brazil. Both films are imaginative and desperate as dramas, but they are world’s apart in the final product. The wild black market of Movie World Cup betting (which is still illegal in the US) still favors Pan’s Labyrinth, but as we’re learning with the other matches in Round Three – the competition is now completely up in the air.

Out of the few favorites in this competition, City of God and Os Imortais, despite both being fantastic films from down South America way (that’s a joke) remain underdogs in the overall competition. However, fans of drama and international cinema should rise up in defense of both of them. It’s a tough draw that they see each other in Round Two because one of them will be knocked out, but one will live on to face the big boys in the intensifying battle when only 8 films are left. Which one will it be?

A truly difficult pairing, the critically acclaimed City of God faces the importer’s dream film J.S.A. – which is standing in for North Korea considering the inability of that country to show its films to the rest of the world even when they are clamoring for The Respected Comrade Supreme Commander is Our Destiny. Thus, a film about North Korea will have to do. Besides, it’s technically listed as a country of origin. Semantics aside, this match proves to be the most anticipated of the day because it sees two strong contenders squaring off.

A post-apocalyptic future where the rantings of a divorced cab driver have become the basis for a major religion. Who wouldn’t want to see that on the big screen?

We wanted to get inside the mind of director Sebastian Gutierrez by finding out his Top 5 films, and he somehow managed do so while naming over a dozen other films. From Bunuel to Gilliam, find out who inspires one of the weirder writer/directors out there.

A movie that attracts a near-rabid fan following is a cult movie, that is if or until it “goes public” and finds itself on famous lists like the American Film Institute’s.